'My increasingly high tolerance for pain has become a perk of this coffee shop job. I’ll accidentally grab a metal steam wand. I’ll spill a pitcher of boiling water on my leg. Coffee splashes out of the cups and onto my hands as I take them to the customer. We never scream. We grit our teeth and raise our eyebrows. We mouth “Fuck,” but only if we are behind the espresso machine and out of sight. We don’t drop what we are holding, even if it is what’s burning us. What I’m trying to say is, I think this will make childbirth bearable.

A good number of my friends have those “real jobs” everyone refers to with air-quotes. And while I understand that a “real job” means a job in which one can move up, or a job in which one is doing something that he or she has some interest in long-term pursuing, it still seems unfair, as if I wake up in the morning to serve invisible coffee to stuffed animals. Though at times my job seems unreal, or surreal, I’m pretty sure it is taking place in reality.'